Events in Iraq Likely to Be Key Theme for McCain (More Political Exploit, More Mission Accomplished)

[tekisui]

ST. PAUL — In February, Senator John McCain was quite succinct when he was asked what would happen in the general election if he could not convince Americans that the effort in Iraq was succeeding.

“Then I lose,” he said, before catching himself and hedging his answer.

At the time, neither Mr. McCain nor President Bush, whom he long accused of sending far too few troops to Iraq, could have anticipated that events there would turn so much in their favor just as the Republican National Convention opened.

But Monday’s turnover of responsibility to the Iraqis for security in Anbar Province, once Iraq’s most violent territory, serves a purpose for each man. It allows Mr. Bush to claim that five years after the invasion, Iraq is achieving stability, and it allows Mr. McCain to argue that he was the first to come up with the winning strategy, an infusion of additional troops.

Mr. Bush skimmed past his long-running, very public argument with Mr. McCain over troop levels when he addressed the convention here on Tuesday night by video link.

“Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his presidential campaign at risk,” Mr. Bush told the delegates. “He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next commander in chief.”

That is likely to be a central element of Mr. McCain’s campaign coming out of the convention, his policy aides here said. But it may be one of the few areas where he and Mr. Bush are on the same page: Mr. McCain plans to call for far more vigorous efforts to reduce dependence on Middle East oil, his senior policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Tuesday, an area “where I think you’ll see some overlap between our position and the Democrats’.”

In describing himself and Mr. McCain as like-minded on Iraq, Mr. Bush was rewriting a good deal of modern history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03policy.html?_r=1&ref=world

More "Mission Accomplished"! We've heard this speech before, many times from chimpy.